“The Dragon is the mightiest of the signs. Dragons prefer to live by their own rules and if left on their own, are usually successful. They’re driven, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. They’re passionate in all they do and they do things in grand fashion.”(source) Hell to the yeah. WE ARE 500. The startups of the 500 Accelerator batch aren’t just our little monsters. They are DRAGONS. In the 4 months they’ve spent in our Secret Lair, they’ve broken rules. Broken code. Seen many sunrises. Pushed themselves past their limits. FAILED. Even after they leave our doors, they will never forget their dragon nature nor will they lose their passion for building great things. This week, the …

Ryan Freitas is the Co-Founder of About.Me, which was acquired by AOL where he now serves as Director of Product Management. The full interview will be published in the Designer Founders Book. Note: We’re less than a week away from our Kickstarter deadline! Help make our nonprofit book and distribute it for free to students worldwidehere. Taking Risk If you’re not putting your balls on the table, what are you doing? Why even bother being an entrepreneur? Iterations We probably re-did the user experience for the signup process six or seven times before we got it to a very minimalistic two-step… You iterate and you cycle and you put it in front of people early and you test it as …

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